
“My Name is Mr. Boo and I’m Sixteen Years Old. I Live on Munjoy Hill. I Eat Only Fancy Feast’s Chicken Pate and it’s Hard to Find These Days. I Turn my Nose Up at Anything Else and Walk Away From my Dish. What’s my Owner to Do?” Meeoow!
Do you remember the toilet paper shortage? How can you forget – right?
It was the butt of so much publicity for so many obvious reasons. But eventually the shortage got corrected. The supplies are back to normal.
Cat owners are likewise seeing a shortage of some canned cat food – a situation that has dragged on for many months now with no end to the shortage in sight. The shortage is of concern to this blogger who is the owner of the 16 year old Mr. Boo – a fussy eater.
One store manager said the lack of canned cat food was due to the pandemic, but offered no more clues to the mystery.
Another store manager from the same chain said vendors are not telling them what the problem is. But canned cat food is only one of the numerous items that have been in short supply in recent months. One said: “Our warehouse is empty of Fancy Feast.” Really? Tell Mr. Boo that! Meooow!
Another store manager said it had something to do with the recycling of cans not being up to speed. Mhn.com was getting closer to the truth with each stop for sure. The trail for truth was getting warmer with each store manager!
But tired of going from supermarket to supermarket in southern Maine looking for Mr. Boo’s Fancy Feast Chicken Pate and an answer to why it’s so scarce, this blogger went to Chris Parker, Owner of Pet Pantry, Freeport.
Some canned cat food is in short supply Mr. Parker agreed. That’s for a few reasons. One is that production of cat food is off. Certain ingredients needed for wet cat food are in short supply because it is being used elsewhere..
Another reason is that aluminum cans are in high demand these days. There is a shortage of them because consumers are not frequenting bars or restaurants during the pandemic. Rather, consumers are buying canned beer and canned food for home consumption. That has put a strain on the supply of cans. One popular soda manufacturer has stopped selling less popular lines because of the demand on cans.
“When we get a new supply of “Fancy Feast” in stock, it goes very quickly,” a WalMart employee told this blogger recently. This blogger was recently fortunate to find a Mother Lode of Fancy Feast Chicken Pate there which was happily hoarded.
This blogger had come to rely on Chewey Inc. to order Boo’s food on-line. However, a call to reorder this morning, October 12, 2001, found that Chewey is out of what Boo has been eating for several months now. Nothing comparable is available from Chewey either.
Please fast forward to December 6, 2021 for the most recent sequel to the saga of the scarce cat food scare.